Set in Australia in 1827, "The Conversations at Curlow Creek" is an extraordinary exploration of nature and justice, of the workings of fate, of intimacy, compassion, and duty. Two men talk through the night - a convict waiting to be hanged at dawn and the officer in charge of the hanging - revealing their pasts, discovering unlikely connections between their lives. And in the precise, evocative language and with the acute perception we have come to expect from David Malouf, the conversation between these two dissimilar men goes far beyond the details of their lives to express both the isolation of the individual and the experiences, shared in silence, that unite us all.